Verdict

A screengrab of Kenya's deputy president William Ruto at Chatham House, London in February 2019. Photo: CHATHAM HOUSE FEED

Deputy president William Ruto has become the latest notable Kenyan politician to speak at London’s Chatham House, where he highlighted the country’s progress.

The British think tank prides itself on its ability to draw high-profile speakers. It hosted Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta in April 2018 and Kirinyaga county governor Anne Waiguru three months later.

Ruto made a number of claims at the event on 8 February 2019. Here we put nine under the microscope.

Claim

“In fact, the diaspora is the largest contributor [to] our foreign exchange.”

Verdict

correct

Africa Check contacted David Mugonyi, Ruto’s spokesperson, for the source the deputy president’s information. He is yet to get back to us.

But are diaspora remittances – which Kenya’s central bankdefinesas “money sent by a person in a foreign land to his or her home country” – the country’s biggest source of foreign currency, asRuto said?

Kenya’s major foreign exchange earners have over the years included tea, horticulture, apparel and coffee exports, according to the national statistics bureau.

But the 2018 economic survey shows that remittances now contribute more. In 2017 they earned Kenya KSh203 billion in foreign exchange.

Claim

Verdict

exaggerated

The Central Bank of Kenya collects data on diaspora remittances. Each month it surveys the flow of money into the country through formal channels such as commercial banks and other authorised remittance service providers.

In 2018 remittances were at US$2.697 billion. Using the central bank’s exchange rate for 8 February 2019, when Ruto made the claim, this works out to KSh270.1 billion. Nearly half was from North America.

The deputy president said the amount was “upwards” of KSh290 billion, so we rate his claim as exaggerated.

Claim

“It is a constitutional requirement… that when the president is away, the deputy president must be in the country.”

Verdict

correct

Ruto apologised to Kenyans living in London that he was unable to meet them, saying he had to rush back to Nairobi as President Uhuru Kenyatta was due to travel to Ethiopia.

In Kenyan law the two leaders could not be out of the country at the same time, he said. “It is a constitutional requirement which you passed that when the president is away, the deputy president must be in the country.”

Kenya’s constitution states: “When the President is absent or is temporarily incapacitated, and during any other period that the President decides, the Deputy President shall act as the President.”

Dr Luis Franceschi, dean of theStrathmore Law School in Nairobi, confirmed this interpretation of the law. “It is clear to me that the intention of the drafters was that the president and the deputy president should not be away (from the country) at the same time,”he told Africa Check.

(Note: On 26 February 2014, both leaders were away. State House said Kenyatta was unable to postpone a trip to South Sudan due to the “extraordinary nature” of the conflict there.)

Claim

“We have built a standard-gauge railway [of] 600 kilometres… in the last five years.”

Verdict

mostly-correct

To improve its economy, Kenya is building a rail line that can carry both higher-speed trains and heavier cargo.

The first phase of the standard-gauge railway (SGR) from the coastal city of Mombasa to the capital Nairobi has already been built. But several sources have recently put the length at 472 kilometres.

The main line is 472 km and the total track built 607.4 km, the SGR office told Africa Check. The difference is because there are areas on the main line with multiple tracks. These include two main stations and seven intermediate stations.

In total 33 stations account for the difference in rail length, the office said. The second phase of the railway, from Nairobi to the town of Naivasha, will measure 120.5 km for the main line and 132 km in total track length, it added.

Claim

“[The railway] has been in the books of our government for 30 years – it was not built.”

Verdict

incorrect

The SGR line is expected to strengthen trade in east Africa. According to 2014 parliamentary records, discussions on the railway began in 2003.

In 2008 Mwai Kibaki, then Kenya’s president, and his Uganda counterpart Yoweri Museveni signed a communique on the railway.

Kenya’s transport ministry says the railway’s journey started in 2007 while a 2009 railway masterplan study for the East Africa Community says the project was developed in 2007.

We have not found any publicly available record that the railway was in the works 30 years ago – in the 1980s or 1990s.

Claim

“We have connected 6.9 million people to electricity in the last five years.”

Verdict

misleading

Some 6.76 million customers were connected to the electricity grid by 30 June 2018, according to thelatest report by national utilityKenya Power.

In June 2013, a month after the current administration came into office, there were 2.33 million customers. This means in those five years some 4.43 million more customers – not 6.9 million – were added to the national grid.

(Note: We have previously checked another claim by the deputy president on the number of connections and rated it as misleading.)

Claim

“For 50 years only 2.3 million Kenyans were connected to electricity.”

Claim

“We have constructed 7,000 kilometres of tarmac in the last five years – 12,000 kilometres were constructed in 50 years.”

Verdict

unproven

Publicly available data on the length of road built in these five years is contradictory.In 2018, Kenyatta said an extra 3,000 km of tarmac was built from 2013 to 2018, butour fact-check couldn’t find data to support it.

Adetailed analysis of the allocations for roads, and other data such as cement and steel use, does not support the construction of a further 7,000 km of road.

Africa Check has for months tried to get reliable data from the transport ministry. Our access to information request has been pending at the ministry for the past year, and frequent follow-ups are yet to yield fruit. We thus rate this claim as unproven.

Claim

“The number of people on health insurance [has increased] from 3 million to 7 million in a record five years.”

Comment on this report

Hello. I have a question on electricity connectivity. The vice president is talking about 6.9 million people not KPLC customers. Common sense tells me that a customer represents an entire household, whether a two-member household or 9-member family. Therefore, connecting 1 million new customers means that 5 million people have been connected if an average of 5 people (parents and 3 kids) live with the newly connected customers. I stand corrected

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For democracy to function, public figures need to be held to account for what they say. The claims they make need to be checked, openly and impartially. Africa Check is an independent, non-partisan organisation which assesses claims made in the public arena using journalistic skills and evidence drawn from the latest online tools, readers, public sources and experts, sorting fact from fiction and publishing the results.